Archive for May, 2012

Jim Castle
was tired when he boarded his
plane in Cincinnati , Ohio , that night in 1981. The
45-year-old management consultant had put on a week long series of business
meetings and seminars, and now he sank gratefully into his seat ready for
the flight home to Kansas City , Kansas .

As more passengers
entered, the place hummed with conversation, mixed with the sound of bags
being stowed. Then, suddenly, people fell silent. The quiet moved slowly up
the aisle like an invisible wake behind a boat.. Jim craned his head to see
what was happening, and his mouth dropped open.

Walking up the
aisle were two nuns clad in simple white habits bordered in blue. He
recognized the familiar face of one at once, the wrinkled skin, and the eyes
warmly intent. This was a face he’d seen in newscast s and on the cover of
TIME. The two nuns halted, and Jim realized that his seat companion was
going to be Mother Teresa!

As the last few
passengers settled in, Mother Teresa and her companion pulled out rosaries.
Each decade of the beads was a different color, Jim noticed…
The decades represented various areas of the world, Mother Teresa told him
later, and added, ‘I pray for the poor and dying on each continent.’

The airplane taxied
to the runway and the two women began to pray, their voices a low murmur.
Though Jim considered himself not a very religious Catholic who went to
church mostly out of habit, inexplicably he found himself joining in. ;

By the time they
murmured the final prayer, the plane had reached cruising altitude. Mother
Teresa turned toward him. For the first time in his life, Jim understood
what people meant when they spoke of a person possessing an ‘aura’. As she
gazed at him, a sense of peace filled him; he could no more see it than he
could see the wind but he felt it, just as surely as he felt a warm summer
breeze.

‘Young man,’ she
inquired, ‘do you say the rosary often?’ ‘No, not really,’
he admitted.

She took his hand,
while her eyes probed his. Then she smiled.. ‘Well, you will
now.’ And she dropped her rosary into his palm.

An hour later Jim
entered the Kansas City airport where he was met by his wife,
Ruth. ‘What in the world?’ Ruth asked
when she noticed the rosary in his hand. They kissed and Jim described his
encounter.

Driving home, he
said. ‘I feel as if I met a true sister of God.’

Nine months later
Jim and Ruth visited Connie, a friend of theirs for several years. Connie confessed that she’d been told she had ovarian cancer. ‘The doctor says it’s
a tough case,’ said Connie, ‘but I’m going to fight it. I won’t give up.’
Jim clasped her hand. Then, after reaching into his pocket, he gently twined
Mother Teresa’s rosary around her fingers. He told
her the story and said, ‘Keep it with you Connie. It may
help.’

Although Connie
wasn’t Catholic, her hand closed willingly around the
small plastic beads. ‘Thank you,’ she
whispered. ‘I hope I can return it.’

More than a year
passed before Jim saw Connie again. This time her face was
glowing, she hurried toward him and handed him the rosary.

‘I carried it with
me all year,’ she said. ‘I’ve had surgery and have been on chemotherapy,
too. Last month, the doctors did second-look surgery, and the tumor’s
gone.. Completely!’ Her eyes met Jim’s. ‘I knew it
was time to give the rosary back.’

In the fall of
1987, Ruth’s sister, Liz, fell into a deep depression after her divorce. She
asked Jim if she could borrow the rosary, and when he sent
it, she hung it over her bedpost in a small velvet bag. At
night I held on to it, just physically held on. I was so lonely and afraid,’
she says, ‘yet when I gripped that rosary, I
felt as if I held a loving hand .’

Gradually, Liz
pulled her life together, and she mailed the rosary back. ‘Someone else may
need it,’ she said.

Then one night in
1988, a stranger telephoned Ruth. She’d heard about the rosary from a
neighbor and asked if she could borrow it to take to the hospital where her
mother lay in a coma. The family hoped the rosary might help their mother
die peacefully. A few days later, the woman returned the beads. ‘The nurses
told me a coma patient can still hear,’ she said, ‘so I explained to my
mother that I had Mother Teresa’s rosary and that when I gave it to her she
could let go; it would be all rosary in her hand. Right away, we saw her
face relax. The lines smoothed out until she looked so peaceful, so young.’
The woman’s voice caught. ‘A few minutes later she was
gone.’

Fervently, she
gripped Ruth’s hands. ‘Thank you.’

Is there special
power in those humble beads? Or is the power of the human spirit simply
renewed in each person who borrows the rosary? Jim only
knows that requests continue to come, often
unexpectedly. He always responds though, whenever he lends the rosary, ‘When you’re through needing it, send it back.
Someone else may need it.’

Jim’s own life has
changed, too, since his unexpected meeting on the airplane. When he realized
Mother Teresa carries everything she owns in a small bag, he made an effort
to simplify his own life.

‘I try to remember
what really counts – not money or titles or possessions, but the way we love
others,’ he says.

MAY GOD BLESS YOU
ABUNDANTLY, MAY MOTHER MARY ASK HER SON JESUS TO SHOWER
YOU WITH GRACE.

Please feel free to
pass this mail on, especially to all those in despair so
that they might know that they are not alone in their hour of
need..

The reason I sent
you this mail is because I know the power of the prayers of these simple
beads and I wanted to share it with you. Every sacrifice has
a fruitful reward. Every failure has a second chance.

We only have to be strong thru God’s grace and persevere in life’s many tests!
May GOD bless you always.

The Pastor had shared about listening to God and obeying the Lord’s voice.

The young man couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Does God still speak to people?’

After service, he went out with some friends for coffee and pie And they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways.

It was about ten o’clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, ‘God… If you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey.’

As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk.

He shook his head and said out loud, ‘God is that you?’ He didn’t get a reply and started on toward home.

But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk.

The young man thought about Samuel and how he didn’t recognize the voice of God, and how little Samuel ran to Eli.

‘Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk.’ It didn’t seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home.

As he passed Seventh Street , he again felt the urge, ‘Turn Down that street.’

This is crazy he thought, and drove on past the intersection.

Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street .

At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh

Half jokingly, he said out loud,
‘Okay, God, I will.’

He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi- commercial area of town. It wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.

Again, he sensed something, ‘Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street.’ The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat.

‘Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid’ Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk.

Finally, he opened the door, ‘Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something, but if they don’t answer right away, I am out of here.’

He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man’s voice yelled out, ‘Who is it? What do you want?’ Then the door opened before the young man could get away.

The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt… He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn’t seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. ‘What is it?’

The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, ‘Here, I brought this to you.’ The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face.

The man began speaking and half crying, ‘We were just praying… We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn’t have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk.’

His wife in the kitchen yelled out, ‘I asked Him to send an Angel with some… Are you an Angel?’

The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put it in the man’s hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face.
He knew that God still answers prayers.

THIS IS A SIMPLE TEST. If you believe that God is alive and well, send this to at least ten people. This is so true. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that God asks us to do that cause us, if we are obedient to what He’s asking, to be able to hear His voice more clearly than ever. Please listen, and obey! It will bless you (and the world).

Phil. 4:13
This is an easy test – you score 100 or zero. It’s your choice.
If you aren’t ashamed to do this, please follow the directions… Jesus said, ‘If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’